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That shows me how much I have to learn."

Come the start of the 2012/13 season, Suso had another new Liverpool manager following Brendan Rodgers’ appointment.

Though after being included in the Reds’ pre-season tour of North America, playing 45 minutes in friendlies against Toronto and AS Roma, this time he was on the verge of his senior breakthrough.

Handed his debut as part of a young side that beat Young Boys 5-3 in the Europa League in September 2012, he came on at half-time against Manchester United in Liverpool's next Premier League outing for his top-flight debut, before making his first league start in a 5-2 win over Norwich City the following weekend.

Rodgers was full of praise for the then 18-year-old following his debut, declaring he “loved Suso's arrogance on the ball” and handed him a new contract the following month.

"We are all delighted Suso has committed his long-term future to Liverpool Football Club,” the Northern Irishman said.

Starting six of Liverpool's next seven Premier League matches following his top-flight debut, he was limited to substitute and bench duty in the Europa League and League Cup as a result.

Yet he was an unused substitute in the Reds’ next five league games as he returned to Europa League duties, with his early withdrawals at half-time in a 2-2 draw with Everton and before the interval in a 3-0 victory over Wigan Athletic perhaps suggesting he had been turned to by Rodgers too soon.

He would start two Premier League games over Christmas, against Fulham and Stoke City, but Philippe Coutinho's £8.5m arrival from Inter Milan in January made his place in the pecking order clear and he would go on to feature for just 45 minutes in the Premier League in 2013.

Finishing the season with 20 senior appearances to his name, it was a respectable return for a breakthrough season for Suso, but after seeing his senior involvement limited to sporadic unused substitute roles in 2013, he spent the 2013/14 campaign on loan back in Spain with newly-promoted UD Almeria.

With the move coming on the eve of the Reds’ first pre-season friendly, meaning Suso was not afforded a pre-season to catch Rodgers’ eye, it would appear his manager’s mind had been up despite the continued clamour around the Spaniard.

Yet he impressed in La Liga, recording three goals and nine assists from 33 appearances as he helped Almeria clinch survival on the last day of the season as Liverpool went agonisingly close to winning the Premier League in his absence.

And despite entering the final year of his contract following his return to Merseyside, he hadn’t given up hope of forcing his way back into Rodgers’ plans and revealed he had held talks with his manager.

"After the season in Spain, I think I have become a better player - I learned a lot," he said in the summer of 2014.

I want to stay here and sign a new deal - for me, there is no bigger club than Liverpool."

Sadly for Suso he was to be left disappointed.

Making his first matchday squad appearance as an unused substitute against Ludogorets in the Champions League, he came off the bench to score his first Liverpool goal in the League Cup against Middlesbrough in his first outing of the campaign, before netting twice in a mammoth penalty shoot-out victory as the Reds won 14-13, effectively scoring the winner.

But it would prove to be his final appearance for the club, with him making just one more matchday squad appearance, against Everton in September 2014.

Meanwhile, he would also miss out on a final chance to earn Rodgers’ trust, being selected in the starting XI in the Champions League against Basel only to suffer an injury in the warm-up.

He would leave the club in the following January.

Flying out for talks with AC Milan, Suso agreed a pre-contract agreement with the Serie A giants in January, before insisting he didn’t want to finish the season back at Liverpool, prompting a £1m deal to be agreed.

“When I returned to Liverpool to start training, I felt that something had changed and I realised that they wouldn’t renew my contract,” he later recalled of his decision to leave.

"There were six months left of my contract, so I called my agent.

It's a great [club], with an incredible history, but now it is not at its best.”

It was a meagre fee for a player the club had such high hopes for, and a section of the club’s fanbase did consider his exit a mistake.

Considering how his career has fared after leaving Liverpool, there is such substance to such a claim, though it would be hard to argue he would have have a place under Jurgen Klopp given the Reds’ rise to Champions League and Premier League glory.

Regardless, Suso’s head was turned and he would later describe Milan as his dream move, even if he had to first depart on loan to force his way into their first-team plans.

“I left Liverpool after an operation and the first two months were complicated because I had just come back from the injury, after being out for five months,” he would later reveal.

“So much has changed.

I am proud to be able to play for Milan and one day I’ll be able to tell my son: ‘Your father played for Milan.’”

Limited to just six Serie A appearances in his first 12 months in Milan, Suso spent the second half of the 2015/16 season on loan at Genoa, scoring six goals from 19 appearances, including an historic hat-trick against Frosinone as he became only the second Spaniard to achieve such a feat in Serie A.

Such form caught the eye of his latest manager at the San Siro, Vincenzo Montella, and prompted a drastic upturn in his fortunes following his return to Milan, with the playmaker registering a division-high total of nine Serie A assists in 2016/17, also scoring seven goals from 34 appearances as well as in Milan's penalty shootout win over Juventus to clinch the Supercoppa Italiana - the first silverware of his career.

Getting AC Milan back into Europe, he competed in the Europa League in both 2017/18 and 2018/19 as he continued as a key player for the club, returning eight goals and 12 assists from 50 appearances and eight goals and 10 assists from 41 appearances respectively.

Yet his form faltered the following season, prompting him to be loaned to Sevilla in January 2020, with the deal including an obligatory purchase option with the Spaniards signing him permanently the following summer for €24m.

And his first season with the La Liga outfit ended with him helping them win the Europa League, beating Inter Milan 3-2 in the final with the Spaniard scoring in their semi-final victory over Manchester United - the side he had made his Premier League debut against eight years earlier.

A regular for Sevilla in both La Liga and the Champions League since joining the club, Suso has grown up a lot since leaving Liverpool in 2015.
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